From Oakland, Calif. to the peaks of the Andes Mountains, 268 Pepperdine students will depart this weekend to help the needy in cities and villages across the United States, Central and South America.
These teams aren’t out to save the world said Project Serve Co-Coordinator Harris Kenny, a junior. If you look at it objectively [Project Serve] is just a Band-Aid. Keep in mind there are structural and systemic problems in each country. If it were about dollars and cents you can’t justify going. But Project Serve positively affects the lives of everyone involved. At least that’s the hope. It’s about personal growth and you can’t put a price tag on that.”
In its eighth year Project Serve will take 17 teams to 14 different locations in North and South America. Site locations include Guatemala New York City The Dominican Republic Chicago Seattle Costa Rica Ecuador and Panama.
Kenny and senior Co-Coordinator Kathryn Hosey have been working since the summer to coordinate the 17 trips. As Project Serve coordinators they research potential locations and keep the application process running smoothly in the months leading up to spring break. However according to Kenny Pepperdine Volunteer Center Director Ashley Nolan is “the unsung hero” of Project Serve.
Every spring Nolan is the mastermind behind the operation. She handles the annual $200000 budget purchases plane tickets forges the connection between Pepperdine and various humanitarian organizations but never sets foot on Project Serve soil.
Project Serve offers ministry humanitarian and service opportunities and many of the teams partner with churches and faith-based organizations.
“The purpose of Project Serve is not evangelistic but faith is the foundation of the trip Kenny said. What we’re doing matters because it matters to God.”
One team will push faith and service to new heights by mountaineering two volcanoes in Ecuador’s Andes. A medical mission team will be the hands and feet of Christ on a medical evangelism mission in Mayan villages in Guatemala. Another will encounter “the culture within” by volunteering on the San Carlos Indian Reservation in Arizona.
Junior Sascha Reed is co-leading the first Project Serve team to travel to Costa Rica.
“Basically we sat down and planned the trip according to what our team wanted to do Reed said.
The team, with several students from the Pepperdine soccer club, will spend afternoons running soccer clinics and assist a local church with a building project in Sarapiqui, Costa Rica. The team will take soccer balls and pumps to give to children.
Some Project Serve graduates said their experiences gave them a new life outlook. Senior Danielle Jaggers said her medical mission last year to Honduras was one of the best experiences of her life. While working in the tiny clinic, students administered shots and provided medical assistance that is normally reserved for medical students.
It changes your perspective on life and the things we have and take for granted Jaggers said. They have love community each other and they really lean on one another. I had to ask myself ‘Is what I have really better than what they have?’
This year Jaggers is taking on a leadership role heading up a team bound for the Dominican Republic to teach English to school children through Orphanage Outreach.
Although Project Serve may do little to address long-term needs of people it’s still valuable according to Kenny.
“You can’t dismiss the value in meeting the immediate need especially at sites that we return to every year he said.